


Victorian Secrets

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Clothing Porn, M/M, Melbourne, Swimming, Victorian role play, bowler hat, john's moustache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:20:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the home invasion, in both their homes, Sherlock has decisions to make. He needs to make a lot of changes in his life. He also stumbles across one of John's secrets. But a night in a fancy hotel and a lot of deductions later, it's going to be all right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victorian Secrets

Sherlock is still awake at two in the morning, the night after James Moriarty is arrested. He is sitting up, his fingers flexing slowly in John’s hair while John sleeps like a log beside him.

John’s blissful restfulness surprises Sherlock initially. He thought the evening’s danger might have produced one of John’s nightmares, but it seems that taking positive action helps John to sleep like the innocent. He’s snugged up against Sherlock’s leg, nose pressed against Sherlock’s bare hip, moustache tickling Sherlock’s thigh, a hand curved over Sherlock’s knee and he seems to be smiling in his sleep.

Sherlock adores him.

Sherlock has been awake thinking how much he adores John Watson. He loves him, obviously, but he also very distinctly _adores_ him _._ He will compose a hallelujah of adoration to John when he gets back to his violin.

He adores John’s hair and his moustache and his arse and his smile and his cock and his feet and his hands. He adores John’s jaunty walk and the lift of his chin and his laughing blue eyes and the set of his mouth when he is not going to put up with people’s shit. He adores John’s dedication to detail at work and his honesty and his sense of humour. He adores John’s art and last night’s brief, stunning violence in their defence. He adores John’s self-contained confidence and unselfconscious willingness to surrender to him – like last night, when he spread his legs and arched his back with helpless lust, while Sherlock tongued his arse and fucked him senseless and sucked him off.

Sherlock has also been awake thinking about the gun that wasn’t a gun. A cigarette lighter. Like the one the cabbie once used to force people to take poison, in that case in London so many years ago.

Sherlock does not believe in coincidence. Not a coincidence like that, at any rate. He knows now that The Professor hacked Sherlock’s private files at least a month ago. He’ll have to clean his entire drive out, find any digital time bombs Moriarty has left for him.

Sherlock is thinking that he hates and abhors James Moriarty, and that he is bored out of his mind with his IT work, but he’s also thinking that he brought this on himself, a bit, by being so enamoured of any kind of challenge and encouraging that vile little shit to play these games with him for so long, before John said yes to a date and gave him better things to do with his heart and mind.

He is thinking, _I want another challenge, but not with that prick._

He is thinking, _I saved people that don’t even know I saved them because I stopped the cabbie. Maybe I saved that woman from her ex because I saw what he was doing and said what I saw. I want to do that again. I’m bored with de-bugging software. I want to de-bug people. They’re much more interesting; much less predictable. I want to do that. Can I do that? How can I do that?_

John stirs. Sherlock strokes John’s hair some more. John nudges into the touch, kisses Sherlock’s hip and snuggles closer. His crotch encounters Sherlock’s foot, and John hums and kisses Sherlock’s hip again.

Sherlock adores that fact that John is half hard in his semi-sleep and is patting Sherlock’s knee with flexing fingertips. Sherlock puts his hand over John’s and moves it slightly, so John is now patting Sherlock’s inner thigh.

John’s eyes are open now, and he’s gazing up at Sherlock. Sherlock smiles down at him, soft-eyed.

‘I adore you,’ he says, heartfelt.

John’s patting fingers move up and over, caressing Sherlock’s thickening cock now. His eyes are crinkled in a smile.

‘Feeling’s mutual,’ John says, not sounding at all sleepy.

Sherlock’s cock is hard under John’s hand. John’s cock is hard against Sherlock’s foot, which is flexing and rubbing against it.

‘Show me,’ says Sherlock, and John does, and Sherlock does, ending up wrapped up close together, legs scissored so they are frotting wildly against each other, hands clasping each other close, kissing wet and sloppy and lusty, and whimpering each other’s names as they come – a guttural hallelujah of passionate adoration.

*

John is only at work on time the next morning because Sherlock rose with him and showered with him and breakfasted with him and left the house with him.

John takes Sherlock to the front door of the Guildford Lane flat then doesn’t want to leave, so Sherlock invites him in and makes tea while John checks all of the rooms. John is fairly casual about the checking, just wandering about, ostensibly making sure they hadn’t missed any spots while cleaning yesterday. But even from the kitchen, Sherlock knows that John is looking for intruders, for weak spots, for booby traps. He finds none. He’s still uncomfortable leaving Sherlock on his own, and takes a stupidly long time to drink his tea.

‘You’ll be late,’ says Sherlock, ‘And I’m fine.’

John sighs. ‘I know. Sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ Sherlock reassures him, ‘It’s good to know the bastard didn’t leave any dead cats under the sofa along with peeing on the floor and leaving his dog food on the bed.’

John arches an eyebrow, then decides to find it funny. ‘If we actually ever get a dog, we’ll make sure it’s properly house-trained. Promise.’

They kiss and John leaves. Three minutes later he texts.

_Call if you need me. <3_

Sherlock texts back.

_I’m at the window, watching you walk away. You have a fantastic arse._

At the T-junction at the end of the lane, Sherlock sees John stop and waggle his bum. Sherlock’s phone beeps.

_You can have another go on it tonight if you play your cards right._

_Now you’ve made me hard again._ Sherlock takes a photo of the bulge in his trousers to prove the point and sends it.

_If you send me phase two of that image, I’ll never get to work._

_Hudders would kill me. Off you go. I’ll be along soon._

John turns the corner and Sherlock is left alone in his flat.

In his flat that stinks of cleaning chemicals and even so, he can still smell the piss from the living room floor. There’s a discoloured patch – he’ll need to strip and revarnish it. Or burn a hole in it.

Sherlock wanders from room to room, frowning. Everything is clean. Everything is back in its place. The spoiled sheets from the bed were washed twice and are still in the drier. Every last bamboo toothbrush was binned last night. The fridge emptied entirely of its meagre contents. Every piece of cutlery went through the dishwasher. They got a bit paranoid about what Moriarty may have touched, and got a bit compulsive in their clean-up.

Everything is too clean and too bare, the effort to banish all signs of the intrusion serving only to highlight the violation.

Sherlock hates it. He hates that the erasure of Moriarty’s presence is like a neon sign that it was necessary.

The decision is easily made.

Sherlock takes two overnight bags. In one he puts several changes of clothes, two pairs of shoes, his running gear and his bathers. In the other, he puts a few treasures: the bat skeleton; pages of music he’s writing; a few books; more private things. He realises how much of what’s left could burn, for all he cares for it. It’s _stuff_. Stuff can be replaced. Everything that matters is in the second bag and in the violin case next to it, and at Captains of Industry, prepping the espresso machine.

He books an Uber and half an hour later, with his two bags, his violin and his Crumpler satchel containing the computer, phone in his pocket, he travels the few blocks to Flinders Lane, and the Adelphi Hotel.

Once he’s checked in, Sherlock lays on the bed of the suite for a while, looking at the ceiling and eating boiled lollies from one of the jars in the living room. He crunches through them, jarring his teeth but relieving some of his anger.

The Adelphi is a Dessert Hotel, according to its latest refurb. Everything in the minibar is included in the room rate. All the jars of sweets scattered about the shelves in the main room are included. At the rate he’s going, he’ll have eaten the lot before lunchtime.

Sherlock pulls out his phone.

Two more messages from John. One is a photograph of Molly’s barber chair, glistening. She has scrubbed it and polished it. The second is the note, _She disinfected it._

Moriarty sat in that chair yesterday, getting a shave. Watching them. The bastard.

 _I should have deduced it was him_ , Sherlock writes.

 _How?_ John texts back. _You’re brilliant, not God._

Argue the point, or defuse it? Sherlock opts for cheek. _That’s not what you said last night._

It’s the right tactic. John’s reply is:

_Last night you were Oh God Oh God Oh God Fuck Yes Sherlock Fuck Fuck God Fuck Yes. To give you your full title._

That makes Sherlock smile.

 _Half an hour_ , he texts.

Then he makes two phone calls. One to the security company to confirm the time for the repairs and the other to the real estate agent who sold him the Guildford Lane apartment.

*

Sherlock sweeps into Captains of Industry just as the coffee rush is beginning. Instead of swanning over the counter to give the public a free demonstration of _Unfettered Pashing 101: Who Needs Breathing?_ Sherlock leans on the wall next to the espresso machine and watches John make coffee after coffee. He loves to watch John’s hands, and loves to watch the unwavering confidence of every perfect pour.

When a break in the stream of people seeking caffeination comes, Sherlock says: ‘I’ve decided to stay at the Adelphi until I find a new place.’

John blinks as he parses that sentence. ‘You don’t mean until the old place is secure again, do you?’

‘The ambience is ruined,’ says Sherlock, flippantly, like the idea of spending a night in it doesn’t make his spine crawl. ‘Time to trade up in any case. You can help me find something new. The Guildford Lane place is too small, anyway.’

‘Too small for what?’

‘For…’ and then Sherlock falls silent. _Too small for two. For when you move in. You should have your own space, and I’ll have mine, though I expect you’ll want to hold onto your art room in the Nicholas Building. Even if it doesn’t have to be bigger, it has to be yours too, so you’ll have to help me choose a place._

John is staring at him, and Sherlock wonders if John is reading the truth on the back of his retinas. They’ve been dating a week and already said I love you, but Sherlock still thinks that “move in with me” is still a teensy bit quick off the mark. Even for them.

‘…things,’ finishes Sherlock lamely.

John, thank goodness, lets it go.

‘You can stay with me,’ he offers.

‘Yes, but your flatmate has those tedious rules about no sex in the common areas and I want to have sex with you everywhere there’s a stick of furniture to lean on.’

The couple eating at the table nearby grin and mutter to each other about great ideas, and Mrs Hudson smacks him on the arm as she passes. Violet, in the kitchen, is heard to say, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake’, as is her wont.

‘And there’s a swimming pool,’ Sherlock adds.

John grins. ‘I’ll pop home after work and get some stuff.’

‘I can go for you now, if you like,’ says Sherlock.

John tosses his keys to him and says, ‘Go crazy!’ before getting back to the serious business of coffee.

Sherlock pauses by the couple to give a cheery casual salute, declare, ‘Laters’ and waltz out of the café. Half of him wonders why he would do such a thing, and half of him is prancing triumphantly that everyone knows that he has a devilish sexy boyfriend who is the best barista in Melbourne and otherwise perfect in every way.

*

Irene is floating around the house in a silky robe and that’s it. John apologised to her by text for the trouble last night. She was blithe about it. She still seems blithe on the surface, semi-naked and barefoot and laughing into her telephone with some fashion client or other. She waves at Sherlock with her perfectly painted nails, and Sherlock sees her toenails are also freshly painted.

In fact, for all that she is only semi-clad – and seems to be making a point of flashing bare calves and creamy thigh and a knowing smirk, and smirking harder when he seems uncomfortable – there’s something _armour-clad_ about her. As though the glossy red lipstick and sculpted eyebrows, the deliberate sauciness of wearing only a clinging robe and an impertinent smile, and pretending she’s not bothered at all by the invasion of her home, will make the ugliness of the world slide right off her.

Sherlock tucks that thought aside to examine later.

In John’s room, Sherlock notes the spot on the bedroom floor that is too shiny, smells of Pine-o-Clean, but is totally free of Jim Moriarty’s blood. The door where John smashed it into Moriarty’s face is also clean, but like everything else, in that too-clean reminder of what’s happened. The tube roundel bearing the Baker Street is untouched, and Sherlock runs his finger across its metal face, strangely glad it was spared the ignominy of Moriarty’s blood.

He finds a bag and packs a few days’ worth of clothes – a grey suit, jeans, various shirts, a pair of bright red braces. At the back of the wardrobe is a suit bag, and in it he finds a uniform. There’s dust all over the bag, and Sherlock zips it up again. He can’t imagine John wearing that uniform. Not _his_ John, of the waxed moustache and the three piece suit and the natty shoes. The John of khaki and boots and heavy weaponry visited last night, but that John is kept tucked down tight for emergencies. Like that uniform.

Then Sherlock finds a bowler hat in the top shelf of the wardrobe, and is overwhelmed by the possibilities of John in a bowler hat, the patina shoes, his waxed moustached, and a raging hard-on. Frankly, he has to sit down for a minute and make an effort to stop thinking about that combination of things in concert with he, himself, with his suit on but trousers and pants pulled down to only his thighs while he braces his arms on the dresser and John…

Sherlock pushes at his very interested cock with the heel of his hand, gets his breathing under control, and then throws open the first drawer to drag out socks and underwear. John favours black boxer briefs, and Sherlock loves how the soft cotton clings to John’s hips and arse. He throws a handful into the top of the bag and then remembers swimwear.

He pulls open the second drawer. Ties. Cravats. Bow ties and pocket handkerchiefs. The tin of moustache wax that Irene had brought back from Milan, stowed for later use. No bathers.

He pulls open the third drawer and immediately finds a riot of colour he was not expecting. At the front is a pair colourful board shorts, but when Sherlock throws them in the bag, he spots a pair of tiny red Speedos . Sherlock holds them up and grins and he imagines John in them. He switches the board shorts out and puts the Speedos in.

He’s about to shove the board shorts back in the drawer when the things at the back of the drawer catch his eye.

There’s a fold of material, floral and pastel and with a modest of hint of lace on one edge, and it looks like a pair of women’s knickers. Not sexy knickers. Just plain old Bonds Cottontail full briefs with a little bow at the front… and below that... cotton briefs again. A panel of nylon lace. Still not fancy. And a layer underneath that of strawberries on a white background. Cotton. A cheap lace trim.

Sherlock drags his eyes away from what appears to be a small array of women’s panties and notes the box wrapped in a square of dark green camouflage material sitting next to them.

Sherlock’s phone pings and he checks the message. It’s from John.

 _Don't open the third drawer_. 

Sherlock frowns, considers lying, but the swimwear will be a dead giveaway.

_I found your red Speedos there._

Sherlock waits. And waits. And waits.

He texts.

_I saw but I didn't **look**. I won't. _

Sherlock’s phone rings, and it’s the ring tone he assigned to John two days ago in a burst of sentimentality – the opening bars of Gotye’s _Save Me_. That was days before John saw to his stalker. Sherlock doesn’t know how John saved him before that, though he’s very conscious that he no longer feels like he’s drowning.

John does not sound like he’s saving anybody as he speaks, rapid, panicked, down the line.

 _‘_ They don't belong to girlfriends. I don't have girlfriends. I haven't had girlfriends for years. Fuck. I mean…’

‘John. I know they're yours. That they belong to you. To wear. Yourself. I know.’

There’s a horrible silence and then: ‘You said you didn't look.’ John’s tone is too neutral to be angry or devastated but the kernels of both are in it.

Sherlock can’t speak fast enough.

‘I didn’t. I swear to you, John. I didn’t look. I **_saw_**. It’s what I do. I can’t help it.’

‘What,’ says John, and Sherlock hates that he sounds fragile, ‘Did you see?’

‘Three pairs of cheap cotton knickers. Floral, nylon lace trim, very modest, easily bought at Target or any low-end department store. Neatly folded, just like your boxers, tucked away but not hidden. They appear almost new but have been laundered once or twice, from the state of the trim. But no bras or photographs or any personal mementos of other people. They’re in with your bathers. And a box. I haven’t looked at that either, but the finish is visible and the box is wrapped in a military-issue camouflage scarf of some kind. It’s not a large box, it won’t contain photographs. Your medals, I think.’

All he can hear for a moment is John’s breathing, which is too controlled to be natural. He can hear the effort in it.

‘I’m sorry. Please. Don’t be angry.’

He hears another careful indrawn breath, and an exhale. ‘I’m not angry, Sherlock. Are you?’

‘Why would I be angry?’

‘You’ve just found ladies underwear in my drawer.’

‘Yes, but they don’t belong to a lady, they belong to you.’

John makes an odd noise. Sherlock wonders if he was trying to laugh and failed. His own heart is skipping triple time and he’s breathing carefully too, trying to keep from panicking. But he knows it’s true. Those cotton knickers belong to John. They are not mementos. John has worn them. Not often. And he keeps them next to his medals and he…

The next odd sound is much more like a laugh. ‘Jesus, Sherlock, how the fuck could you know that?’

‘I…’ He won’t say he guessed, because that’s not entirely true. ‘I deduced, from where they are, and what I know of you. And you just told me they don’t belong to anyone else, and you don’t lie to me.’

There’s a silence and then John says, strangely calm, ‘Take out a pair. Have a look.’

Sherlock holds the phone to his ear and pulls out the top pair of knickers. He shakes them out. They are, as he surmised, a pair of simple cotton briefs. Bonds Cottontails. Pink lilies are the primary motif, with pale pastel green leaves. The waist trim is more worn than he’d realised, and the legs too. The front of the knickers is slightly stretched, from fitting over a penis they weren’t designed to hold. The stretch is only slight, though. Enough to accommodate a penis at rest. They have not been worn for sexual gratification. For what reason then?

Sherlock imagines John in them. Wearing those plain pants – functional rather than sexy – underneath his suit. Underneath his jeans.

Underneath his uniform.

‘Your therapist suggested them,’ Sherlock blurts.

John’s breathing sounds better now. Less strained. ‘Why would she do that?’

‘Clothes matter to you, John. You’re mindful of how you dress, how the material feels on your skin. Within your budget, you dress impeccably. She suggested that something close to your skin might help with…’ he finds the word that goes with his instinct, which is based on observation of both things and people, and coalesces into words for the things he so suddenly knows, ‘…disassociation. For the bad days.’

He swallows. He has seen John on the fringe of bad days. Freezing at the sound of smashing glass. Expelling Mrs Hudson’s ex from the café. Prowling around the defiled apartment and determining that he will protect Sherlock at all costs.

Sherlock is aware that John sounds less and less distressed; or at least that he has to make less and less effort to not sound distressed.

‘On really bad days,’ says John, ‘I wore them. Nothing feels like Afghanistan when you can feel the lace on a pair of Bridget Jones Big Pants getting caught in your stomach hair, and a cotton gusset is squishing your balls against your crack. It’s not exactly what the therapist suggested – she thought I should wear loose fitting clothes and go dancing. That wasn’t always possible. This was more… more… useful. More immediate.’

‘An imaginative solution,’ Sherlock offers.

‘Yeah.’ There’s a laugh in that syllable.

‘So you don’t really have a thing for lady’s underwear.’ Sherlock means it to sound teasing, a break in the tension, but he hears John hold his breath again, and his brain goes whizzing around madly. ‘For yourself, I mean,’ he adds.

‘Not… for me. No.’

Sherlock holds the floral pants to his cheek and rubs the lace along his cheekbone.

‘I’d prefer something softer,’ he says quietly into the phone, ‘But I’m not averse.’

‘Then we’ll get something softer. If you want.’

‘I think,’ says Sherlock, finally letting go of the tension because John has finally let go too, ‘I will need to conduct a great many experiments to examine the full range of what I want. Because ten minutes ago I was day dreaming about you having your way with me while wearing that bowler hat I found, and I had to calm myself down before I could continue with your packing.’

John chuckles. ‘Make sure you pack it, then,’ he says. ‘I’d better get back to work.’

‘I’m done here, anyway.’

‘Good. I’ll see you tonight at the hotel. I love you.’

‘I love you,’ Sherlock replies.

He places the knickers in the bag, folded and tucked into the bowl of the hat.

Irene is sitting on the front veranda as he leaves, dressed now in a wee pair of black, skin-tight shorts and a cropped lace top. She’s on the phone and smirks at him as he leaves. He wonders if she knows how to actually smile or if the smirk is the best she can do.

It’ll be good when he and John are living together and he doesn’t have to tolerate her _smirking_ at him all the time.

*

John is completely self-possessed by the time he stands out front of the Adelphi Hotel at 5:30pm. He glances up to the rectangle of glass that overhangs the street; at the rippling blue of water in the jutting section of swimming pool. How that thing ever got council clearance is anyone’s guess, but he’s glad it happened. Melbourne has been staid over the years – she’s had periods of being as prissy as a Victorian schoolmarm – but she always has had her secret sins, her bubbles of rebellion, places where she pushed the boundaries.

It’s another way this city reflects elements of who _he_ is. Maybe everyone who feels that they have secrets under their skin loves Melbourne in the same way.

He walks up the steps into the foyer with its zig-zag carpet and the impressionist face along one wall and the wire horse and reflective ceiling.

Sherlock is there, rising to his feet, smiling, though he’s hesitant underneath that. Still worried about how John is reacting to the discovery. He needn’t be. Sherlock wasn’t prying, he was _packing_. It’s John’s fault he didn’t text in time. Seems to have turned out all right.

John reaches for Sherlock’s hand and kisses him on the cheek. He rubs his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s fingers.

Sherlock accepts all of this but he pauses. John can tell that Sherlock is reading him. Pulse rate. Respiration. Pupil dilation. Whether he limped up the stairs and whether there’s any sign of a tremor in his hand.

John waits patiently, and looks into Sherlock’s eyes, and is still. He even smiles. After a moment, Sherlock smiles back, with his eyes as well as his mouth now.

Holding hands, they go up to their suite. It’s decked out a bit like some crazy 1960s bachelor pad meets eccentric 1980s interior designer meets New Millennium sensibility.

‘Swim first,’ Sherlock says, waving to the Speedos laid out on the bed, ‘Dinner later.’

John laughs. ‘The boardies were on top.’

‘The boardies were dull.’

The board shorts were fifteen different colours and the Speedos are plain red, and so John knows that it’s not the colours Sherlock found dull. John strips, washes his face, gets into the Speedos which are snug and leave nothing to the imagination. Sherlock, in a pair of slimfit blue racing trunks, as painted on as a pair of cycling shorts, and John shows his approval by holding Sherlock by the hips and stroking his thighs while kissing him.

Sherlock presses their bare torsos together and it’s odds-on they’ll never make it to the roof, except that John steps away from him. ‘Come on,’ says John, ‘I’ve always wanted to swim in that ridiculous pool.’

They put on their complementary robes, push their feet into the complementary slippers, and take the lift up to the roof.

They have to actually just swim for a while, because if they stop to kiss in the pool they may get thrown out of the hotel for indecency. So they swim a few laps, and then John stops at the end that hangs over the street and looks down at people passing underneath. The water ripples and he can’t make out much. Sherlock dives down and holds onto John’s ankles, pressing his face to the glass, then turns upside down for a moment. A whoosh of bubbles erupts and Sherlock bobs up to report that the view of the street improves slightly when that close to the glass, but the general outlook is much better once inverted and did John know that the Speedos give an excellent silhouette to both his arse and his cock from that angle?

John slides close to him in the water, and kisses him, and dips his hand between Sherlock’s legs to give him a brief and wonderful fondle before laughing and climbing out of the pool.

They sit for a while under the shadecloth, drinking craft beer and looking at the city buildings rising around them.

‘You really can come to mine for as long as you want,’ says John at last.

Sherlock runs his finger around the rim of the bottle, then blows across the top of it to make a pleasing note. He frowns. ‘I don’t know how long it will take to find a new apartment,’ he says, not looking up.

John taps the base of his beer bottle with his fingernails. ‘I guess my place is a bit small. With Irene there too.’

Sherlock is glad John doesn’t insist that the old apartment is perfectly fine to sleep in. Sherlock knows this. It’s not that he’s frightened to. It’s just that it’s tainted now. It’s only been his place for a year, and he and John haven’t spent so many hours in it yet, and then that fucker pissed on it, literally and figuratively, and he can’t be bothered with the effort it’ll take to remove the blight of it. He doesn’t want the time he spends with John there to be spent on that effort. He wants to make a place that’s theirs from the start.

And he absolutely will not say that.

John leans forward in his chair. ‘The Adelphi costs a bomb, though, doesn’t it? That room, anyway.’

Sherlock shrugs. ‘I get a remarkably good rate. I helped a … related party with a little problem last year.’

‘A _little problem_?’ John grins knowingly at him. ‘What kind of _little problem_?’

Sherlock grins slyly back. ‘Combination of a theft of some artwork, a fraud attempt on the business and an intensely personal matter that required the remote erasure of some digital images. Nothing illegal, merely awkward. The problem evaporated shortly afterwards and I am, for the time being, receiving the thanks of a grateful patron. I think I can stretch it out to a month of gratitude, and then we’re square.’

‘You’re amazing. Look at you. Solver of mysteries. Tech wiz. All round genius and smokin’ hot. The perfect package.’

Sherlock shakes his head but he’s smiling. Then he sobers. ‘I’d give up the Tech Wiz title in a shot. I hate it. Not because of … that… that…’

‘Fuckmuppet?’ suggests John casually. The combination of disgust, ridicule and scorn in the epithet makes Sherlock grin again.

‘Not because of that fuckmuppet exactly, though he’s symptomatic of the reasons. It’s dull. Predictable. I’m bored with it. I can feel my brain seizing up as I do it. I hate it.’ He frowns as he looks up at John. ‘You don’t hate what you do,’ he says.

‘No,’ John agrees. ‘But I used to. I joined the army and I loved it, but after a while, it was… it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. There were good things, but all the bad outweighed it. I thought I’d be able to help there be less suffering in the world, and I was just helping to make more of it. I got blown up and went back to it because I thought it was all I had to offer, and I did my best but… it just got worse. Every day. Then I got shot and got so messed up I couldn’t go back even if I didn’t have anything else. I had to find something else to do. To _be_. And I did.’

‘You’re happy now, then?’

‘Yeah. Especially since the last piece fell into place.’ John grins, eyes crinkling, moustache moving up to smile with his mouth in the way that Sherlock adores.

‘I’ve got the last piece,’ Sherlock says, ‘It’s the rest that doesn’t fit.’

‘Maybe it’s time to change it. What do you want to do?’

Sherlock waves a hand airily, as though it doesn’t matter. ‘Solve puzzles. Raise bees.’

‘Do that then.’

Sherlock looks sharply at him, but John is earnest in his answer. Sherlock wants to ask _how_ , but he knows how. Stop taking IT jobs. Formalise the puzzle solving stuff, see if it can be turned into a business. A bee farm… he’s always wanted to try the city rooftop hive idea. He doesn’t have a suitable rooftop right now, but if he’s going to buy a new apartment, that’ll have to be on the checklist, along with plenty of room for John and a separate space for doing science. He’s got plenty of money from the IT side, and money coming in from a few bits of code, and there’s his share of grandmere’s money that he’s never even touched.

Sherlock takes a deep breath and a slow smile spreads across his face. ‘All right. All right, I will.’

John beams back at him. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know.’

 _Believe I can do it_ , thinks Sherlock, but he already knows that John does believe it. That John believes _in him_. And knowing that, Sherlock knows that he can do _anything_.

‘Time for dinner, I think,’ says Sherlock. He rises and holds out his hand. John takes it and stands. They leave the empty bottles on the table and return to their room to change.

*

They go out to dinner. That is, they mean to go out to dinner. They mean to sit and sip wine and talk over pasta or those fabulous little dishes at Chin Chin, or maybe at Cumulus near Spring Street, or maybe some tapas just around the corner at Movida Next Door, stopping to look at the latest street art down Hosier Lane.

They end up grabbing a pizza and a beer at Yak Bar, nipping down to Grocer for a tub of yoghurt and yuzu gelati and taking it all back to their hotel room, where they sprawl on the Bachelor Pad carpet and feed each other. The pizza is fine. The tangy ice cream, flavoured with Japanese citrus, is better.

Feeding each other turns into licking each other’s fingers clean, then just licking each other, and undressing each other, and…

… and Sherlock is wearing the pastel pink floral panties he found in John’s drawer. They’re tight on him, stretched across his more bountiful bum, and tight across his burgeoning front as well.

Sherlock holds his breath as John puts his head on one side and considers.

‘I haven’t needed those in ages,’ John says at last, thoughtfully. ‘I always liked the feel of them, though. A bit snug, but soft. Higher on the waist than I normally wear stuff, and if I started to get tense, I’d pull the waistband of my trousers out and there’d be that cheap lace. It made me laugh. They were… funny. A circuit-breaker I could feel on my body as well as in my head.’

Then John, who is lying belly-down on the floor, wriggles like a naughty commando across the floor, plants his face between Sherlock’s legs and rubs his nose against Sherlock’s clothed cock, pushing his nose up the thickening shaft, down into the pliable softness of his balls, up again, and closes his mouth over cloth and cockhead and sucks.

Half an hour later, John’s in the bowler hat, moustache rewaxed to its full glory and he’s done with brushing that fabulous thing all up and down Sherlock’s spine and all over Sherlock’s bare bum, and Sherlock’s bent over the back of the white shag-pile chair, arms braced on the seat of it, the pink knickers pushed down as far as his knees, while John holds onto his hips and pumps into him while saying in the poshest voice he can muster, ‘There’s my lovely boy, your pretty nancy loves my tallywag up it, eh, sweetheart?’

‘Yes, sir, my, it do, sir!’ Sherlock pants back at him in dreadful faux cockney, and they’d both be giggling at how awful their role play is if it weren’t for the fact that Sherlock’s nancy does indeed love John’s tallywag right up it.

Before Sherlock can come all over the back of the expensive chair, John pulls out, kisses Sherlock and keeps kissing him as he repositions the pair of them on the sofa and, still wearing his bowler hat, slings Sherlock’s legs (pants around his ankles now) over his shoulders and gets back to delightful business. Sherlock ends up with one hand holding the hat steady on John’s head and wanking himself off with the other, while John thrusts into him as he holds onto and kisses Sherlock’s wrist that’s rising past his face to hold onto the hat.

It’s ridiculous. It’s stupidly hot. It’s messy and when he can string two thoughts together again later, Sherlock will contrive to smuggle out the furry sofa cover to have it dry cleaned, but right now he’s just lying on the thing, laughing breathlessly, arms and legs wrapped around John who is sprawled across Sherlock’s body, laughing into Sherlock’s sweat-damp skin.

After a while, John pushes himself up with one arm and doffs the bowler he’s still wearing with the other. ‘You’ve been a pleasure, sir. I shall ask Good Queen Vicky to give you a medal of some sort.’

Sherlock takes the hat off him and plonks it on his own head. ‘Why, sir, don’t you know I am a great explorer? Like Livingston before me, I have explored the great depths of the Amazon, encountering mighty serpents who seek out warm caves, and men of stunning physical prowess and exceedingly sensitive nipples, all in the name of Queen and Country!’ He nips at one of John’s exceedingly sensitive nipples and a wrestling match begins which sees them both deposited on the floor, laughing and slippery and sticky.

*

The bath is long and probably not wide enough but they make do, filling the tub with fragrant bubbles and each other. Sherlock sits behind, his legs bracketing John. He rests his cheek on the back of John’s neck.

‘You really want to move?’ says John, rubbing the face washer up and down Sherlock’s shins.

‘Hmm,’ says Sherlock sleepily, ‘Need something bigger. Room for y…’ He stops.

John keeps sweeping the washer up and down Sherlock’s shins. ‘Room for me.’ He leans back against Sherlock, head against Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘We’re doing it again,’ he says.

Sherlock knows exactly what he’s talking about and doesn’t pretend otherwise, but he doesn’t confirm it either.

‘I keep looking at my place and thinking, I can’t ask Sherlock to move in here with me. It’s too small. There’s Irene here. We should have our own place. And then I remember we’ve only been dating a week and I’m getting way ahead of myself.’

Sherlock kisses John’s forehead.

‘And I can’t afford to buy a place with you yet. I don’t have enough for a deposit to begin with, and I don’t know that I’m considered a good risk at the bank. I’m a _barista_.’

‘You’re _the_ barista,’ says Sherlock, ‘But it doesn’t matter. I have plenty of money. The Guildford Lane place is paid off, and has increased in value. I have enough savings.’

‘I have to pay my share, Sherlock.’

‘Why?’

It shouldn’t be such a difficult question. Because I don’t want to live off your wealth? Why? Pride? It seems a stupid answer. All the answers seem stupid so he doesn’t say any of them.

Sherlock senses victory. ‘I have the money. I don’t want to stay where I am and have to work to overcome the memory of what he did in it. Why shouldn’t I buy us an apartment if I can afford it? You can decorate bits of it. You can pay the rates, if it’s important to you. We’ll work it out. You don’t even have to move in right away, if you’re not ready. I’ll wait.’

John turns in the tub so he’s lying sideways in Sherlock’s arms. He nuzzles into Sherlock’s throat.

‘I feel like we _should_ wait,’ he says, ‘But I don’t _want_ to. My grandparents didn’t, actually. They met during the war, you know. Got married really quickly. Pops used to say, falling in love is easy. Living together is where you put love into practice. It’s something you do and not just something you feel. It’s a commitment, not just to each other – it’s a commitment to the commitment.’

Sherlock has the washcloth now and is sluicing warm foamy water over John’s chest. Over the scar on his shoulder and down his slender body to his hips. He loves the feeling of John cradled against him like this.

He loves everything about John. His mind and his body and his voice and the things he says.

‘Does this mean you’ll help me find a place and move in with me?’

‘I think it does, yeah. Yeah. Because I feel… I feel right with you. Like I’m… where I belong. Being in love with you is easy. Maybe living with you will be harder. But I promise I’ll work on that with you. Commit to the commitment to be together. Yeah?’

Sherlock can’t reply right away. He’s holding John so tight that John’s in danger of not being able to breathe. Or slipping out of his arms. That mental image makes Sherlock giggle and relax.

‘Yes,’ says Sherlock, ‘I commit to the commitment of us working.’ He thinks about the other thing John said. About why. ‘And me. With you. I feel. I feel like. I’m. I’m all right. I’m. Home. I’m home already. With you.’

The profundity of the moment is shattered into giggles when they try to get out of the tub and nearly do each other an injury, it’s so wet and slippery. They mutually rescue each other and then dry each other and go to bed.

There, they cuddle, they kiss, they doze. Sherlock fetches a bottle of champagne from the minibar and they get tiddly and giggle and kiss some more. Sherlock raises a glass to their soon-to-be-cohabitation. Then he raises it to the bees he’s going to get for the rooftop. Then he raises it to the puzzle-solving agency they’re going to set up.

‘To Tallywag and Nancy!’ hoots John. He downs his champagne in a swallow and then collapses on the bed, rolling around in hilarity as Sherlock volubly insists that they are not naming their agency after a penis and an arse. No matter how excellent said penis – _and said arse!_ declares John – may be.

Sherlock wrestles John onto his back, pins him down by pressing John’s wrists above his head, and tangling his legs with John’s, and finally gets John to stop giggling by kissing him assiduously for so long that John goes utterly pliant.

John hums as Sherlock kisses his face and throat and chest. ‘Gonna get you some really pretty knickers,’ he mumbles after a while, ‘Pretty panties for your pretty nancy.’

Sherlock has some of his own ideas about underwear for John’s equally pretty tallywag. Men’s underwear, sheer and gauzy and with leather and ties. Also more hats. And the shoes, next time. The patina shoes. God, definitely yes.

The future, thinks Sherlock, looks very very bright.

His last thought, before he drifts to sleep, is of the sign John has screwed to his bedroom door. The Baker Street tube roundel.

_The Baker Street Agency._

It is, like John, perfect.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here is their swimwear:
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> YOu can find pictures of the Adelphi Hotel and its pool and the suite at the [CaptainsofJohnlock tumblr](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/post/134768342788/221b-hound-the-latest-captains-of-industry/)


End file.
